All this he had conveyed with delicacy enough; but, observing that Miss Verinder, after her eyes had been opened, showed density, slowness of intelligence, or lack of sufficient recoil, he felt the initial touch of that cumulative irritation with which fate was about to torture him, and he amplified the argument in a heavier and less tactful style. Very, very wrong of Dyke to play the fool with her, and hold this knowledge up his sleeve. Can have so behaved for none other than a caddish motive. Very, very humiliating for her, to find out how worthless he is; but nothing to do except take the thing in proper ladylike style, wash him out, and look pleasant about it--that is, pleasant before company.
Miss Verinder, to the horror and amazement of her parents, said she had known it from the beginning. Nothing underhand or caddish about the man; best man in the world; at any rate, the only man in the world for her. As to being talked about, peril to reputation, and so on--it did not, as she implied, matter twopence-half-penny to Miss Verinder. To such questions as, Where had her pride gone? she returned evasive or unsatisfactory replies.
Mr. Verinder, talking now very freely, felt after a little while that he was making too much noise and no real progress. He broke off the interview, saying he would take Mrs. Verinder downstairs with him and go on talking to her alone in the boudoir. Emmeline offered to withdraw from the music-room, leaving them alone there; but Mr. Verinder said he needed pens, ink, and paper, and he would find them on the ground floor. He would return soon to make some final pronouncement to Emmeline; she was therefore to remain where she was.
Downstairs, he used such words as stupid hero-worship, temporary infatuation, passing fancy induced by the plausible cajolements of a man so much older than herself. Of Dyke he said he could not speak with adequate censure--and he added at once that most certainly Dyke’s invitation to dinner on the twelfth must be cancelled. But of course there should be no cancellation of the dinner itself. He would write to Dyke to-morrow; he knew exactly what to say to Dyke. That letter, however, could wait till to-morrow. The pressing thing was to decide what to do with Emmeline.